The Unrealized Coalition

Abstract

This chapter examines why resegregation was never prevented by the state of California. It asks, why did California, the world's greatest urban project during the first three quarters of the twentieth century, decide that it no longer needed to collectively invest in its urban future? Why did it not develop a more functional system of urban and regional politics that could have dealt with the sins of the postwar era? Why could it not wean itself from an overreliance on certain forms of infrastructure without constructing an entirely new map of inequality? A common recent explanation for this inaction reaches beyond development politics to basic governance. A second set of reasons for inaction fits squarely within the focus on neoliberalism and Reaganite revanchism.